European Research Area

The aim of creating a European Research Area was launched by the European Union in 2000 as part of the Lisbon Strategy, in order to:

• ‘enable researchers to move and interact seamlessly, benefit from world-class infrastructures and work with excellent networks of research institutions
• share, teach, value and use knowledge effectively for social, business and policy purposes
• optimise and open European, national and regional research programmes in order to support the best research throughout Europe and coordinate these programmes to address major challenges together
• develop strong links with partners around the world so that Europe benefits from the worldwide progress of knowledge, contributes to global development and takes a leading role in international initiatives to solve global issues.'

Within the development of the European Research Area, there are a series of initiatives relating to researchers. 

• Lisbon Strategy
• Charter and Code for researchers
• Researchers' mobility portals 
• Fifth freedom

 ERA consultation (September 2007)

In 2007 the European Commission conducted a consultation on progress towards creating the European Research Area (ERA).

The on-line survey revealed that only 45% of respondents say they are sufficiently aware of the European Charter and Code and 62% say that unless the Charter and Code were legally-binding their principles were unlikely to be implemented. 75% believe a Charter and Code label should be applied to organisations which are applying the principles. However, the majority of free-format respondents prefer the Charter and Code to remain voluntary.

A key issue in the creation of the European Research Area and free movement of researchers are national social security systems.  Statutory pension rights were considered the most problematic area. Read the ERA consultation preliminary results 2007.

In October 2007, The chair of the ERA Expert Group on Researchers presented the group's interim findings at the ‘The future of Science and Technology in Europe' conference in Lisbon. Set up by the European Commission to look into specific aspects of the ERA the Group investigated topics such as mobility, recruitment, gender, social security and the Charter and Code of Conduct. For more information refer to Parallel Session Four in the conference papers. The ERA Expert Group published an interim paper Rationales for the European Research Area (2007).